A Christmas in Philly

Ho, Ho, Ho - Merry Christmas! After the family pollyanna party on Sunday, we stayed at Barb's B&B on Bedford Avenue in Collingdale, PA. Christmas Eve dawned with a list of chores and shopping to do as we got ready for the big day. We attended the 4:00 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass at St. Joseph's Church. After mass, Barb prepared a lovely dinner of assorted mini quiche and tossed salad with almonds and cranberries - yum. We then stuffed our stockings and settled in to watch a Christmas movie.  However, by the time we finished checking our emails and wishing everyone a merry on Facebook, it was too late to start the movie.  (We didn't want Santa to have to wait before delivering our presents, so we went to bed early.)

Christmas morning started with a great breakfast of pink grapefruit, scrapple and cheese omelette. We then started the Christmas dinner prep while we waited for Katie, Deb, Laird and Risa to arrive. At 11:00 a.m. we left to pick Katie up at her Mom's house in Delaware.  Katie got a ride down from New Haven by her step-brother, since she was still suffering from vertigo which came on after coming down with the flu.  No sooner did we get Katie back to Barb's house, then Deb called to say she had the flu and couldn't make it.  This was definitely turning out to be an interesting Christmas.

Laird and Risa drove down from Albany and arrived without incident. Also joining the party was Sue and her clan - Vicki and Mike (and Mike's friend, Matt), along with her fiance, Dave Laroche. Everyone quickly tucked into the munchies spread across the coffee table.  The wine bottles were opened and the beer began to flow. As soon as everyone relaxed, caught up, quaffed and noshed, we gathered around the tree to exchange our presents.

Here is Katie's dog Maggie being very good.














Here is Maggie being mostly good.

Maggie just couldn't resist the little wooden stick arms on Barb's mechanical snowmen collection.  Luckily, the sticks didn't taste as good as they looked and she soon settled down with her bully sticks.






We started by opening the stockings.  Here is Risa showing off one of the tiny books we got from our friend, Carmen Carter, who's mom worked for the publisher and did the bindings by hand, as well as the cover art work.  We knew once we saw these tiny little books that Laird and Risa would love them!

Here is Laird showing off his new brain cell.

When our turn came to open presents, we quickly grabbed the box from Matt, Weina, William and Bubu and tore into it. Inside was a beautiful, soft, cuddly hand-made wool blanket from Ecuador

No sooner did we get the presents unwrapped than it was time to sit down for dinner. From left to right - Dave S., Sue, Barb, Kathy and Dave L.

As you can see, there was nothing left but crumbs.  There was great debate over the best part of dinner. Was it the filet mignon, Barb's homemade mac and cheese, or Risa's homemade Christmas kugel. Since we couldn't decided, since it was all so good, we decided to put off the vote until next year and then do it all over again.

After dinner, Dave, Kathy, Laird, Risa, Katie and Maggie retired to the Hyatt House Hotel for an evening of chuckluck and wine.  After two games, the day caught up to us and we all settled in for a long winter's nap.

Maggie got us up early by launching herself up onto our bed and licking our eyes, ears, nose and face.  Guaranteed, you won't sleep through that wake-up call! We met up with Laird and Risa for breakfast before we hit the road before Winter Storm Euclid caught up with us.  We dropped Katie off in Delaware on our way back to North Carolina.  Unfortunately, our 7 hour drive ended up being an 11 hour 45 minute drive. While we missed most of the snow (we did see some flurries between Baltimore and Washington), we didn't miss any of the traffic. While it wasn't fun, we did make it home, unlike the folks on the 1,300 flights that were cancelled.  So, all is well that ends well.